Latest news with #motivation
Fast Company
3 hours ago
- General
- Fast Company
Motivation is a pattern: Moving from alarm clocks to purpose-driven success
Motivation isn't just a feeling—it's a pattern. A pattern of behavior, of habits, of choosing again and again to pursue something that matters. Too often we confuse motivation with external forces: deadlines, alarms, or pressure from bosses. But the most lasting, fulfilling kind of motivation comes from within. There are two types of motivation: alarm clock motivation and fulfillment-driven motivation. Alarm clock motivation is just what it sounds like—an external push. It's the reason you get up at 6:30 AM because your job or responsibilities demand it. It's duty-bound, sometimes driven by fear or necessity. Think of a teacher who wakes early because they have 30 kids waiting for them. It's not passion that gets them out of bed—it's the obligation. Fulfillment-driven motivation is different. It's internal. It's what happens when you believe you were meant to do something. That same teacher might be waking up at 6:30 AM not just to teach, but because they believe they're shaping minds and making a real difference in their community. That's purpose in action. And when your motivation is tied to fulfillment, your energy, creativity, and resilience increase dramatically. But to operate from fulfillment, your basic needs have to be met. You need stability: shelter, food, rest, safety, love. Only then can you lift your gaze beyond survival and start to think about the impact you want to make in the world. Subscribe to the Daily newsletter. Fast Company's trending stories delivered to you every day Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters Many people set huge, noble goals—to start nonprofits, write books, change lives—but fail to get traction because they haven't overcome the basics. They're still stuck in alarm clock mode. And that's okay. It's a phase. But we must recognize that we can't get to fulfillment-driven motivation if we're still fighting to meet our daily needs. Once I reached a point where my family was stable—economically, emotionally, spiritually—that's when my motivation began to shift. I was no longer driven just by the need to provide, but by the desire to help others, to make an impact, to mentor and inspire. People lose enthusiasm when their motivation isn't sustainable. If you're driven only by money, fame, or a target metric, what happens when you hit it? Often, you find that the goal doesn't simplify your life—it complicates it. You need a deeper 'why' to carry you through. That's what fulfillment provides. The key is setting goals that are both attainable and purpose-driven. Don't aim for something completely out of reach just to prove a point. Instead, chunk your big dream into manageable pieces. One of my mentors used to say, 'The best way to eat an elephant is in hunks, chunks, and bites.' That's how motivation works best too. For example, instead of setting a goal to lose 50 pounds, start by going to the gym every day for two weeks. Then build from there. Instead of trying to get on a nonprofit board immediately, show up to events, serve, and connect authentically. Motivation builds when you take meaningful action—bit by bit. As I've grown, my motivation has shifted again. In my 20s, I was motivated by fun. In my 30s, by financial stability and growing a business. Now, as I approach 40, I'm motivated by spending time with my family, mentoring others, and making a meaningful dent in the world—just as Steve Jobs encouraged others to do. Ultimately, motivation is about setting yourself up for success, not burnout. It's about recognizing the season you're in and aligning your goals accordingly. So ask yourself: What motivates you now? And how can you break it down into the bites that will carry you forward? When you understand that motivation is a pattern—not a mystery—you gain the power to shape it.
Forbes
4 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Watch For These 4 Signs That You Need A Sabbatical Not A Vacation
A well-timed sabbatical does not disrupt your career. It protects it. It prevents erosion. There is a moment when even high performers start to feel flat. The work is steady, the output is consistent, but something is missing. Ideas feel repetitive. Motivation dips. Confidence flickers. It is not burnout exactly. It is not boredom either. It is a quiet internal signal that something has shifted. For many leaders (and those who work for them), this moment marks the beginning of sabbatical thinking. Not because they want to quit. But because they cannot grow from where they are. A sabbatical is not a luxury. It is not a reward. It is a strategy. When taken with intention, it becomes a turning point that restores energy, reclaims direction and rewires ambition. But knowing when to take one is not always obvious. The most common mistake people make is waiting too long. They delay because they are still performing. They defer because no one else is doing it. They convince themselves it is not the right time. But careers are built in seasons. And sometimes the most productive season starts with a pause. These are the four signals it might be time to step away. 1. You Are Performing Well but Learning Nothing There comes a stage in many careers where competence turns into autopilot. You still deliver. Others still rely on you. But the challenge is gone. The feedback gets quieter. The goals start to feel recycled. What once felt like achievement now feels like maintenance. That kind of success can become a trap. Because nothing is wrong, it is easy to keep going. But if you are not learning, you are not building. You are repeating. And repetition without growth erodes momentum. Learning is not just about new information. It is about new stimulation. Fresh inputs. Intellectual discomfort. When those disappear, so does the sense of movement. A sabbatical is not just a break from tasks. It is a break from patterns. It creates space for different questions. It introduces different environments. It helps professionals get off the treadmill of efficiency and ask harder questions about what comes next. When your learning curve flattens but your responsibilities stay high, that is often the signal that something needs to change. 2. You Are Working More to Feel Less Sometimes overwork is not about ambition. It is about distraction. Professionals who have been in the same environment for too long often absorb stress they no longer recognize. They stop reflecting. They stop questioning. Instead, they fill their time. You take on extra meetings. You overcommit to projects. You say yes to everything because you fear what would happen if you slowed down. The calendar is full, but the meaning is thin. That thinness shows up in strange ways. You forget why you used to care. You stop seeing your colleagues clearly. You skim, nod, move on. You are functional but detached. This is not sustainable. And it is not healthy. But it is common. A sabbatical resets the rhythm. It forces disconnection from the constant doing and reintroduces thinking. It gives you room to feel again. And when you can feel again, you can make better choices about your work, your relationships and your direction. If you are keeping busy to avoid asking deeper questions, that is not discipline. That is avoidance. And avoidance has a cost. 3. You Are Respected but No Longer Seen Another sign it might be time for a sabbatical is when your reputation is strong but your role has gone stale. You are trusted. People appreciate you. But they no longer expect anything new from you. You are no longer part of the big conversations. Your ideas land, but they do not stick. You are invited out of habit, not momentum. And inside, you know you are not contributing at your best. This is not failure. It is drift. And it happens more often than most people admit. Sometimes the best way to regain relevance is to step away. Not forever. But long enough to reframe your narrative. To reset how people experience you. To stop being the person who always shows up and start being the person whose return is noticed. Time away can restore visibility. It can create curiosity. And it can remind others that you are not just consistent. You are evolving. This is especially true for mid-career professionals. When the early growth curve levels out and the executive track feels unclear, a sabbatical can reorient long-term focus. It is not a retreat. It is a reframing device. And often, that reframing is what unlocks the next phase of contribution. 4. You Cannot Hear Yourself Think The final and clearest signal that it might be time for a sabbatical is noise. The meetings never end. The emails are constant. Your calendar has no white space and your head has no quiet. You find yourself reacting more than deciding. You feel pressure to always be on. You chase productivity not because it is meaningful but because it is expected. And somewhere in that noise, you have lost contact with your own direction. When you cannot hear yourself think, you stop making deliberate choices. You start managing optics. You confuse motion with progress. And you forget what used to make you feel alive. This is where a sabbatical becomes less of a reset and more of a rescue. Silence is not wasted time. It is a condition for clarity. And clarity is the only thing that will help you return stronger, sharper and more intentional. A well-timed sabbatical does not disrupt your career. It protects it. It prevents erosion. It signals maturity. And in many cases, it sets the conditions for your next leap forward.
Irish Times
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Let's face it ‘reach for the stars' is not a very Irish mantra
'Reach for the stars and if you don't grab them, at least you'll fall on top of the world.' Mr Worldwide is on my mind. The musician recently visited Dublin where he treated hordes of bald cap clad fans to a dose of Pitbull positivity. This is the man who gave us the lyrical gems such as 'This is for everyone going through tough times, been there done that, but everyday above ground is a great day remember that' and 'Excuse me, Excuse me. I might drink a little more than I should tonight'. But it's the motivational, 'reach for the stars…' that's currently on my mind. It's not the most unique line. Variations of this maxim exist globally. The closest, in Ireland, we might consider to be Oscar Wilde's 'we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars'. A slightly more pessimistic slant, but, let's face it, reaching for the stars is not the most Irish thing to do. READ MORE What you are much more likely to hear, in the land of one hundred thousand welcomes, is 'a bird in hand is worth two in the bush' (ie, don't risk it – what you have may be better), a slightly more emphatic 'sure, give it a lash' (ie, try – but not too hard) or a basic 'shoot', uttered when you have missed something that you never told anyone you were aiming for. Humble is what this (humble) nation is all about. Anyway, I'm thinking about this – Pitbull, the stars, humility – after an online meeting with the National Campaign for the Arts – the group are campaigning for the retention and extension of the Basic Income for the Arts pilot programme . Shortly before the meeting was due to start, Minister for Culture Patrick O'Donovan announced that the scheme would be extended for an additional six months . We were off to a good start. This additional funding period would allow more time for the Government to evaluate the pilot programme, introduced by Mr O'Donovan's predecessor Catherine Martin , and decide on its future. Both government parties committed to continuing the Basic Income for the Arts in their 2024 election manifestos. Fianna Fáil , the majority party, did so with slightly more emphatic language that included a commitment to addressing access issues for disabled artists. With the report confirming the unequivocal success of the pilot programme, the mood of the meeting was positive. Remember, the chair repeated towards the end of the meeting, our asks are humble. Around this time, another report was published: Low-Income Disabled Artists' Navigation of Welfare and Working Lives by academic Philip Finn. The report addresses the following question in an Irish context: 'How does the welfare system enable or constrain the working lives, social inclusion, and participation of artists with disabilities?' Humble is the key word in its findings. 'Artists with disabilities,' Finn writes, 'tend to be paid less, have lower rates of employment and apply for and receive lower funding amounts.' Almost half the participants in Finn's study reported that they 'limit the amount they earn due to earning thresholds of disability welfare supports'. Under current social protection rules, disabled people, artists included, in receipt of Disability Allowance risk losing their essential supports if their monthly earnings supersede a rate lower than the average Irish monthly rental payment. Very humble indeed. Equally stark is the report's finding of the pervasive concern that heavily influences the choices of disabled artists in their careers who fear the potential loss or reduction of supports, compounded by the lack of clarity available from the Department of Social Protection regarding assessment guidelines. [ How Ireland's landmark €325-a-week arts scheme changed my life – I've never taken it for granted Opens in new window ] Losing the safety net of Disability Allowance to consider accepting a once-off book publishing contract or arts commission thus may be imprudent. In this scenario, many disabled people would opt for the 'humble' option of requesting lesser or no payment or turning down the gig entirely. Reaching for the stars is too risky a move. For disabled artists the bird in hand approach might be more sensible. Just make sure that bird doesn't have any great ambitions to fly too far. Otherwise, you might have to swap it for the one that is content to stay put in the bush.
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
‘Didn't know how I survived': Tradie builds multimillion-dollar empire after brutal kidnapping
Over a decade ago, Joseph Berriman was kidnapped, bashed, and left for dead. At the time, he promised himself that if he survived, he was never going to take life for granted again. These days, he's a multi-millionaire living the tradie dream; he even owns a jetski. However, reaching this level of success was far from an overnight win – it was a decade-long slog. Mr Berriman was raised in Newcastle, NSW, and ended up in Western Australia, working in the mines and determined to make something of himself. He'd grown up in a loving household, but his mother struggled to support him and his four siblings, working three jobs to make ends meet. It wasn't that he ever considered himself unlucky, but he recalls wondering from a young age why he couldn't afford the same things as most of his friends. 'The hunger came from growing up with not much,' Mr Berriman told 'I have the most beautiful parents but they just didn't have much money.' He always knew that he wanted more Growing up, Mr Berriman always knew that he wanted the luxury of not worrying about money, but he didn't end up going to university. At 14, he was kicked out of school. He was disinterested and would rather go surfing and hang out with his mates than be stuck in a classroom. 'I remember my dad coming to the school and he was upset when he arrived, and after he said to me, 'you can do whatever you want to do, but you've to stick to it,' he explained.' Mr Berriman took the advice seriously. He moved to a small country town and got an apprenticeship as a carpenter. When he looks at his own nephews and nieces now, it seems unthinkable to imagine a 14-year-old striking out on their own, but even as a teenager he was driven. 'I just really wanted to be a really good carpenter,' he said. The move to WA turned into a nightmare Mr Berriman finished his apprenticeship and moved to Western Australia to do a traineeship in order to become an underground driller. 'I always wanted to educate myself and I wanted to get better at things and I wanted to learn,' he said. At the time, the move felt like the right decision. However, once he arrived, even though he didn't mind the actual work, he found being so far away from everything and everyone really hard. 'It was a pretty stagnant place. I wanted freedom to be able to surf and travel and I think I felt trapped,' he said. Looking back, Mr Berriman said that boredom played a role in his falling in with the 'wrong crowd,' but he was also young and having fun like everyone else his age. Mr Berriman's party boy stage ended in broken bones when he was mistaken for someone else in 2013, at this point a 20-year-old man. He was kidnapped by a gang of four men outside a tattoo parlour in Margaret River, bundled into his own car before being taken to bushland 4 kilometres from town. Here, he was beaten nearly to death. Mr Berriman doesn't remember all the details, he's not even sure if he wants to, but he does remember thinking he was going to die. 'I was beaten and it was pretty traumatic. They thought I was someone else, and I remember being handcuffed to a tree and thinking, 'this must be it',' he said. He doesn't know who, but someone came back and un-handcuffed him from the tree where he'd essentially been left to die. 'I remember them saying to me, 'you're a good person and we're sorry but you've got to head'.' At that point, he had no idea where he was, but he forced himself to start walking, despite being in excruciating pain and having no clue where he was heading. 'I was a mess,' he recalled. 'I just remember walking through this bush and the first person that come across was an off- duty paramedic and she basically saved me.' The attack left him with a fractured leg, nose, and broken knuckles. He also needed stitches in the back of his head and rehabilitation. 'The doctor didn't know how I survived. They thought it was crazy that I lived through it,' he said. Mr Berriman moved back to Newcastle after the attack. He said he is only just now starting to comprehend what happened to him, over a decade later. 'I just didn't take it to be as serious as it was. I was like, 'okay let's just get on with it',' he said. 'I moved back to Newcastle and that was the moment that I thought, I have to go for it, and life isn't meant to be taken for granted. 'What happened to me was crazy, and I wanted to make something of myself, and it made me fearless.' Starting again after the brutal beating It was a lengthy process to recover; Mr Berriman couldn't work for months and he needed to attend regular rehab and physiotherapy. He spent around a year couch surfing with family and friends, and remained focused on his physical and emotional recovery, but he was also directionless. By luck, he had a family friend who saw potential in him and was running a successful building company. Mr Berriman said the guy took him under his wing and told he was a 'good kid', putting a lot of faith in him. The man offered him a job as a carpenter at his construction company, where they were building houses. Here, Mr Berriman thrived. 'I learned how to be professional, how to run teams, and he taught me some really valuable things when it comes to running teams and clients,' he said. He was earning between $50,000 $60,000 at the time, but it felt like a million bucks, and it was enough to get his life back on track. Mr Berriman said he really felt like things were turning around. He and his girlfriend bought a studio apartment together, booked a trip to Bali and was eager to feel like himself again. Then everything fell apart. 'I remember receiving a phone call from the guy who owned the company, and he was like 'Joey, you've got to return the ute, we're shutting up shop',' he said. 'They ended up going bankrupt, and I was like nooo, just when we were starting to get ahead.' Starting a company with basically nothing Gutted and fed up with being at the mercy of someone else, Mr Berriman finally decided to start his own business. 'I started my own company because I didn't want to let anyone take control of my future,' he explained. His knee-jerk reaction was to cancel his holiday and focus on building his own company but a mate encouraged him to go on the holiday, and use it as motivation to be able to do both. Mr Berriman hit the ground running. He bought an old ute, had his cousin, a graphic designer, create a website and logos for him, and purchased some work shirts. 'I just went out quoting,' he said. He didn't really know what he was doing. He rang around old clients he'd had a relationship with before the company he worked for went bust and tried to scrounge up as many new clients as possible. By the time the holiday came around he'd done countless quotes but had zero jobs booked in. 'I didn't hear anything,' he admitted. He was panicked, but it was too late to cancel the trip, so he went and spent the bulk of the time panicking. 'The last few days of the holiday I just felt sick to my stomach and had like $250 left in my bank account,' he said. Not wanting to burden his girlfriend with the worry, he tried to pretend everything was fine but she saw through it. By the time they landed back in Sydney, she was demanding to know what was wrong with him, and he knew he had to fess up. But just before he came clean about being broke, he decided he'd check his phone and see if perhaps anyone had called while he was away. At that point, even one person would have been a dream come true. 'I opened up my phone at the airport in Sydney and the messages just started going off. I listened to the voicemails, and it was like, 'Hey Joey, we'd love to go ahead with the quote',' he said. Mr Berriman went from having nothing to having a successful business in a matter of days. 'Clients started sending out deposits, and within 24 hours, there was $250,000 in my bank account,' he revealed. 'In the first 12 months, I generated seven figures in profit.' Creating a $10 million plus empire The business became an incredible success story, but it wasn't easy. 'I had to learn really fast. I was a young guy and I was telling people older than me how to do their jobs,' Mr Berriman said. 'I had to understand how to hire the right people and manage the right people who are experts in their fields.' Having such a demanding job was also tough. He was only 22 at the time, and while all his friends were still partying, he was running sites and managing men decades older than him. Eventually, he took some time away and went on a trip around Australia with his girlfriend, focusing on maintaining a better work-life balance. Ultimately, he left the business and dived into property development and he is now the director, founder and coach at Premier and Co, an education and coaching company supporting construction and real estate business owners to achieve long-term success with the right structures and strategies in place. If it sounds like everything just fell into place after he went out on his own, Mr Berriman said that couldn't be further from the truth. 'There was a million trillions, ups and downs, and lows and wins,' he said. Today, Mr Berriman's property development company is worth $10 million and he has personally made seven figures in profit. But even now, he still feels like he is in the middle of his journey, not at the end. 'I think you're forever learning in business,' he said. The biggest thing he has taken away from all his success is that it isn't just enough to work hard and make plenty of money. 'What are you're doing it for?' he asked. If you can't answer that question, Mr Berriman said no amount of success will be enough.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Serena Williams' former coach questions Novak Djokovic's mentality in Grand Slam pursuit
Novak Djokovic winning Grand Slams became a habit in the 2010's and even the early 2020's, but now the world is adjusting to a new normal. The Serbian hasn't won a major since the U.S. Open in 2023. Famous tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou had a theory about the drought that he talked about with Nick Kyrgios. The former coach of pros like Serena Williams and Holger Rune believes it's not Djokovic's old age but his mentality that is holding him back from a 25th Grand Slam. "He's just realized that he would be the best of all times because Rafa was out and the thing he was fighting for 15 years, suddenly there's no more goal,' Mouratoglou said on the Ultimate Tennis Show podcast. "I think he completely lost the motivation, which is easy to understand, which is normal." Mouratoglou, who is known for making brash statements, does have a point. Djokovic has the most Grand Slams of any male tennis pro in history. After winning the 2024 Olympics, he has every major title in tennis. Has that impacted his drive to win? That's what Mouratoglou seems to think. Djokovic is 38 years old and there's a better possibility that old age has led to a decline in his performance. Still it's an interesting case to make that the Serbian has less incentive to win with nobody nipping at his heels. Even if that's true, Djokovic has made Grand Slam semifinals in all three majors this year. He is able to compete at the highest level even if there's questions about his decline. The only way Djokovic can silence this conversation? By winning another Grand Slam. MORE: Ons Jabeur makes shocking announcement about her tennis future
